Awsi Dooger wrote:
I was thinking the same thing. Klaver with the large frame and some intimidation factor is a lot more likely to get the lead and win a head to head race than to have the fastest time among 2 heats.
Heck, it already happened last year. Klaver had the superior lane at European indoors and managed to hold off Henriette Jaeger in the final by .07. It was Klaver's only head to head win over Jaeger all year. Outdoors Jaeger finished ahead of Klaver in all 5 meetings.
This past weekend at Dutch indoor championships Klaver similarly held off Myrte van der Schoot in the final by .05 as van der Schoot set a big new personal best and met the world indoors standard. It looked like van der Schoot might have been able to win that race other than a brief hesitant step when she seemed to think she wasn't supposed to blow past Klaver on the outside.
Overall I prefer the split races at both 400 and 200. In attending NCAA conference and national meets the past few years you get some surprising results. Nobody thought Bella Whitaker would run 49.24 from the first heat last year. And this past weekend at Big 10 indoors there were several Indiana fans and teammates who were loudly crowing near the finish line when their guy ran 20.37 to take the first 200 heat easily. USC's Garrett Kaalund seemed to embrace the challenge. He flew down the stretch for 20.06 and the third fastest time ever.
Lots to unpack here.
Firstly, it doesn't make sense at all when Meuwly is also the coach of Myrte van der Schoot. According to your theory, he purely wants an advantage for Klaver, and isn't concerned that someone like Van der Schoot may possibly benefit from two heats?
Lurdes Gloria Manual is also one of his athletes who may benefit from two heats, someone also slower than Klaver at the break (yet she beat her this season). So are you saying he is favouring Klaver over two of his other athletes? Why and what other evidence is there for this?
Meuwly is a professional, experienced coach who trains each athlete to their potential and ability. There is no 'athlete hierarchy' in his teaching approach & each athlete is given a strategy before a race that suits them & is not discussed or shared with his other athletes in the same race.*
The fact is, Meuwly simply wants a championships 400m to be a RACE. A race between the best athletes, not a situation where one athlete may attempt to intentionally Q for a different final to someone in the SF before, so they don't have to race them. This is a very real possibility, and then it makes 400m SF running 'tactical' which is ridiculous.
On Jaeger, they were in the Netherlands for goodness sake. Never underestimate the extra boost a home Championships gives an athlete in those final meters. But regardless, Jaeger did not run a good race, despite being only 1/100th off her PB. She ran the first 100m too fast, settled too much in the second 100m (it should have been the other way round), allowing Klaver to have 2m over her at the break. Shen then stupidly tried to overtake Klaver coming into the final bend, over exerting herself, meaning she did not have enough in the last meters.
*I don't want to hear any nonsense response that he did this Klaver & Bol when the latter set her WR, or that Klaver 'allowed' Bol to get the break, as this never happened: Bol was faster than Klaver over 200m indoors at that point; BOTH women were aware they had the same optimal opening split of between 23.5 - 23.7, thus it was common sense for Klaver to sit in behind Bol because if she fought her to the break, it would only disrupt both their races. She ran smart.